Hindu Tamil Thisai turns the page on IT costs with low-code, achieving 40% savings using Zoho Creator

Summary

Hindu Tamil Thisai has developed three applications to streamline their business processes for managing their daily newspaper, from advertisements to printing to distribution.

With three apps working together, Hindu Tamil Thisai simplified their advertising, event management, and printing operations, making the entire process effortless and efficient.

The company

Hindu Tamil Thisai is a Tamil daily newspaper that was first published by The Hindu Group in 2013. With nine editions and a circulation of 3,00,000+ copies, Hindu Tamil Thisai serves a wide range of readers keeping them up to date on everything that happens across the world.

The challenge

Before adopting Zoho Creator, Hindu Tamil Thisai relied on a combination of .NET, PHP, React, and Power BI to develop an application for managing their news printing operations. However, most of their previous solutions required manual coding, which was time-consuming and expensive. They began seeking alternative solutions to reduce their development costs. That's where low-code came in.

The solution

Hindu Tamil Thisai's operations already ran on an array of Zoho products; they used Zoho Billing to manage customer accounts, Zoho Inventory to track and manage the stock of newspaper rolls, Zoho Books for financial operations, Zoho Commerce for building an ecommerce website, and Zoho Backstage for managing campaigns and events.

Their existing familiarity with Zoho products made Zoho Creator a natural choice for building a system that not only addressed their unique business processes but also integrated seamlessly with all their other Zoho applications.

Having never used low-code before, Zoho Creator was the first low-code tool they implemented to streamline their operations. They were especially drawn to Zoho Creator's flexibility and ease of customization.

With Zoho Creator, they developed three different applications to optimize their day-to-day operations at Hindu Tamil Thisai in less than five months. These applications are now actively utilized by six different departments and over 300 users, significantly enhancing overall efficiency.

The subscription hub

This application streamlines customer onboarding by facilitating invoice creation, generating payment links for easy processing, and managing subscription renewals based on customers' selected plans. With Zoho Billing integration, all customer details are automatically synced. By simply entering a customer’s phone number, the sales team can retrieve all relevant information from the system. Additionally, they can view and track any changes, edits, or updates made in Zoho Billing within the app.

Tracking the field activity of salespeople is also easier since this application integrates with Google API. It records check-in and check-out locations and the distance traveled by each salesperson throughout the day. This information allows the finance team to calculate travel distances automatically and process reimbursement requests more efficiently.

Ad and event manager

This application includes both ad and event booking modules to facilitate requests for advertisements in the newspaper.

In the ad booking module, relevant details about the advertisement can be entered, including who booked it, its contents and dimensions, and the specific page where the ad will appear. Based on this information, the app automatically calculates the total cost for the advertisement and forwards the request to the design team for production. After the final advertisement is published, the status is updated, and Zoho Books generates an invoice for all the published ads.

In the event booking module, when events such as award ceremonies, conferences, or recognitions are scheduled, all related costs and details are recorded. Once the event is officially booked through Zoho Backstage, the relevant ad requests are automatically generated, and, once approved, the finalized advertisement is sent to the designer for production.

Printing production tracker

This application tracks the purchase and consumption of paper rolls imported for newspaper printing. This system is integrated with Zoho Inventory, allowing easier tracking and maintenance. As new stock is added in Zoho Inventory, the app automatically updates, enabling staff to use paper accordingly. Users can view stock levels by vendor and monitor inventory across various branches of Hindu Tamil Thisai.

The printing production tracker also generates an appropriate e-way bill or invoice when shipping paper rolls between different branches of the company, complying with government regulations. Here, the details of the transfer can be provided, including the originating branch and the destination branch. After this, the app automatically generates the appropriate e-way bill or invoice by fetching data from a government website.

Benefits and ROI

Gopinathan mentioned that their end users loved the application's interface, both for its user-friendliness and ease of navigation. The switch to Zoho Creator also brought in some significant cost savings.

After Hindu Tamil Thisai implemented Zoho Creator, they've seen benefits including:

• Improved efficiency: The team can now process subscriptions and manage their printing processes more quickly. With a cohesive system that integrates both their Creator applications and other Zoho products, it’s much easier for them to access their data and have a unified view. Previously, this required more time spent navigating each Zoho application for billing and changes. Now, any modifications made in a Zoho product will be reflected in the linked Creator application.
• Time savings: The switch to Zoho Creator has helped them save valuable time that was previously spent on manual coding. This has allowed them to focus on other critical tasks, contributing to overall productivity and effectiveness.
• Cost savings: After the switch to Zoho Creator, Hindu Tamil Thisai was able to achieve a 40% reduction in costs.

Looking forward

Currently, Hindu Tamil Thisai is developing a custom human resource management system (HRMS) and a content management system (CMS). They have an ambitious road ahead, with plans to build several additional applications on Zoho Creator. These initiatives aim to optimize various operations, enhance efficiency, and streamline processes across the organization. By leveraging Zoho Creator's capabilities, they are committed to improving overall productivity.